I think that New York is not the cultural centre of America, but the business and administrative centre of American culture.
quote by Saul Bellow
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The Wheelwright. For David
The wheelwright worked, as carefully,
yet so fast, as a wheel spins.
One day, someone said to him,
the centre of the wheel never moves.
Infuriated, the wheelwright worked night and day
neglecting his other work,
to prove this was not true;
he invented a wheel which was all rim;
but it still needed a hub, an axle;
but he had invented the flywheel;
his business flourished despite him.
He invented a wheel with a hollow at its centre;
but had to devise a radiating hub;
yet he had invented machinery;
his business thrived.
After many years, he sank back,
beaten by philosophy; reduced to stillness.
Around him, a huge business enterprise;
he, the hub, the axle,
the still centre.
poem by Michael Shepherd
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If most American cities are about the consumption of culture, Los Angeles and New York are about the production of culture - not only national culture but global culture.
quote by Barbara Kruger
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Centre Stage
There were times when I was young
I wanted to be centre stage,
the one everyone screamed to for more
whenever I sang my song.
As the years progressed
and I could see it wasn’t going to happen,
I grew content to sit in the stalls
and watch someone else take the applause.
I realized that centre stage
wasn’t where I wanted to be
and that I could entertain
just by being me.
I did not need a spotlight
to show the sparkle in my eyes.
I did not need to dress up
to be someone I wasn’t,
I didn’t need a centre stage,
I only need to be me.
I didn’t need glitz and glamour,
just an opportunity to give others pleasure
from any talent that I had.
I didn’t need the centre stage,
but just a means of escape
and just be ordinary me.
20 March 2010
poem by David Harris
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The African Tradition
Libation! It is the African tradition;
It is the centre culture of our tradition;
The power of the African child,
The network of the information from the household gods
And the gods of kingdom, the gods of our identity.
We libate with schnapps, awake the spirits
Of our ancestors so speed us in action an' reaction
But done upon the gad at ease we no longer
For our centre culture active no more as things fell apart
But who is he that makes our minds troubled?
And walk we abroad and forgot our tradition,
Our culture, belief, our vehicle and our tradition
Woe to you foreigner for deception is you;
The betweeness between us took you away from us
And our offspring you turned rebels with your foreign ideas.
The networks of our wise ones you intercepted
And your strange God now we serve with you
While our wise ones slave for your topless.
No to you foreigner, for me, myself and I shall awake
And maintain my fathers' beliefs, culture and tradition
Which I have come and seen, for it is my true identity,
For I am a true African child.
poem by Lightcheerful Briggs
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Forever
THERE'S NO PRESENT THERE'S NO FUTURE
I DON'T EVEN KNOW ABOUT THE PAST
IT'S ALL TIMELESS AND NEVER ENDING
TO TAKE IT IN IT'S ALL TOO VAST
IT GOES - FOREVER AND EVER
YOU THOUGHT YOU KNEW BUT YOU NEVER
THERE GOES
TOMMOROW
JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF ETERNITY
JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF ETERNITY
THE TIME IS COMING BUT ALSO GOING
AND IT'S LEAVING NEVER TO RETURN
MAYBE FOREVER IT COULD BE HEAVEN
BUT IF IT'S HELL THEN YOU CAN WATCH ME BURN
IT GOES - FOREVER AND EVER
YOU THOUGHT YOU KNEW BUT YOU NEVER
THERE GOES
TOMMOROW
I GOT TO TRAVEL FOREVER
IT'S ALL WITHIN MY MIND
AN ENDLESS PATH TO ENDEAVOUR
BUT FOREVER IS A LONG LONG TIME
THERE'S NO SECRETS AND NO CORRUPTION
IN THE CENTRE OF INFINITY
THERE'S NO LIMITS IN NON-EXISTENCE
AND NO BEGINING TO MY DESTINY
IT GOES - FOREVER AND EVER
YOU THOUGHT YOU KNEW BUT YOU NEVER
THERE GOES
TOMMOROW
JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF ETERNITY
JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF ETERNITY
song performed by by Ozzy Osbourne
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Varanasi
Religious and cultural centre, holy city Varanasi
A revered shrine at bank of holy river Ganges.
Founded by God himself, Lord Shiva's adobe Kashi
Religious and cultural centre, holy city Varanasi.
Bathing in Ganges purifies soul and remits the sin,
Dying in Kashi ensures, obtaining the final release.
Religious and cultural centre, holy city Varanasi
A revered shrine at bank of holy river Ganges.
***
Morning mantra hymns make you feel in heaven,
Ghat, temples and festivals, are icons of Varanasi.
Sacred river, sacred place; Hindu's great pilgrimage
Morning mantra hymns make you feel in heaven.
The city has given birth to many great personalities
Great souls Tulsi, Kabir, Ravidas lived in varanasi.
Morning mantra hymns make you feel in heaven
Ghat, temples and festivals, are icons of Varanasi.
***
Varanasi is the city, where Budhism was founded
Sarnath, Budhist's holy place, is too in Varanasi.
First sermon to his disciples Budha here sounded
Varanasi is the city where Budhism was founded.
Glorified by creation of great music and literature,
Classical folk culture, music, craft and philosophy.
Varanasi is the city where Budhism was founded
Sarnath, Budhist's holy place, is too in Varanasi.
***
Triolet form
(C) S. D. Tiwari
sdtiwari1(at) gmail(dot) com
poem by S.D. Tiwari
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H.F. Verwoerd
Today you are seen
as the designer
of a beaconed off existence;
of rending, disorder and hatred
but as the leader of a country
you wanted to bring forth order from disorder,
give an own chance to everyone,
as separate cultural groups and entities.
Now your image, you insight
and wisdom is barren and destroyed,
while we are living in a hodgepodge way,
where the government is destroying
everything that is our own,
pulling the centre out of religion, language
and culture
and putting everything
into a big witches’ brewing pot
poem by Gert Strydom
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A playful destiny
Helplessness,
Sheer helplessness,
Those moments of great disappointment,
Empty pocket,
Stuffed mind,
Stuffed with various desires,
The more they strike, the less they are met,
It turns bad when we are the centre of every hope,
God is also the centre of all hopes,
But there is a difference,
He is nothing to do with our joy and sorrow,
He rewards them whom he wishes,
His treasure is great,
It never reduces,
But we have trifle given by Him,
And still we are the centre of many hopes,
We are clasped in the cruel jaws of destiny
Whom He controls with all His might,
Come what may, We will get only what we are destined to,
Whether we live or not.
poem by Mohammad Akmal Nazir
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Time, which runs through the world like an endless tinsel thread, seemed to pass through the centre of this room and through the centre of these people and suddenly to pause and petrify, stiff, still and glittering... and the objects in the room drew a little closer together.
quote by Robert Musil
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Am I Latin? Am I American? What the hell am I? I love my culture and I'm very proud of my culture.
quote by America Ferrera
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France, and the whole of Europe have a great culture and an amazing history. Most important thing though is that people there know how to live! In America they've forgotten all about it. I'm afraid that the American culture is a disaster.
quote by Johnny Depp
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Mystic Chord
Memory, whose mystic chord
suggests existence of the Lord,
draws some to Gustav's music, Mahler,
many others to Kabbalah,
and even when agnostic, mystics
responsive to Pascal’s statistics,
find Leon’s Moses, sephirotic,
believable, because erotic.
Castilian writings that they dust off
appeal to me far less than Gustav.
Who’s right we may find out in olam
haba, but surely not from Scholem.
Richard Bernstein reviews “American Culture, American Tastes: Social Tastes: Social Changes and the 20th Century, ” by Michael Kammen (Alfred A. Knopf) (“Lowbrow? Highbrow? Culture Raises an Eyebrow, ' the NYT, August 25,1999) . Kammen, the author of 'Mystic Chords of Memory, ” pointing out that since the dominant role of television around 1960 cultural stratification and the existence of distinct brow levels have become blurred where they haven't been overtly blended. He traces the decline of traditional cultural authority and its eclipse by mass culture: “The entrepreneurial power of commerce totally crushed the recommendations of such cultural authorities as John Crosby, Jack Gould and Gilbert Seldes–– prominent television critics who pleaded for diversity.”
8/25/99,1/26/07
poem by Gershon Hepner
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A spiral scratched into an ancient Irish gravestone
A centre and an expansion
a life centred expanding
the force of the centre whirls
a life without limit but it says
a centred life what gods the centre
does not tell but a centre
and from there a spiral
which has a beginning but no end
the life shaping the death the death
shaping the life it seems this life
that life could not be told
need not be told
every life drawn here
drawn because it could not be spoken
even in a lilting Irish voice
speaking a spiral sentence for
Irish sentences are like spirals
the centre expands without limit
the life was lived in the circle of the year
that comes round again sowing harvest
yet never back to the same place
as the mind the vision the experience expands whirls out
like a wild dance celebrating birth marriage death
yet passes the familiar place each season
and love love for the world
expands into a holy love
spiralling without limit yet never forgetting the centre
like a child on a gate swinging
knowing it’s safe because of the hinge
it knows but does not know
for others made the hinge
and now we read the spiral on a gravestone
tracing back from infinity to the source
everything that has an outward
everything that has an inward
and so there is no need for words
the spiral like a poem about life
read it forwards read it backwards
read it with thanks see it as grace
the thick green grass curls over it
the lichen yellow orange green
placed like a lizard
blesses this the most eloquent
gravestone in all the world
in a green field the clouds white
the sky blue this is the centre
of the spiral here now and
there is no ending to the spiral
the gravestone says
but a starting yes
poem by Michael Shepherd
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You are the world to me
The astronaut
is a privileged man
for he sees the world
from the height of its vantage point
above the circle of it's crystal globe
above and beyond the reach of any cloud
where the cold silence is ever so loud
he holds its blue magnificence.
In the centre of his eye
he sees the world the way it is
that is the world to an astronaut
The God of heaven
is the greatest of the universe,
he sees the world
from the pinnacle of it's stature
the world is his foot stool
inhabited by the common fool
and from higher than anyone else
he gazes upon its quiet grandeur.
In the centre of his eye
he sees the world the way it is
that is the world to God
I am a simple man
yet i consider myself the most privileged of all
for when i see you
i see the world
and i see it the way it is
simply amazing!
i see into the depth of your eyes
and behold the greatest magnificence
the most unprecedented grandeur
...you.
In the centre of my eye
...its you i see.
You are the world to me!
poem by Allen Steble
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We also have a cultural phenomenon: the emergence of a global culture, or of cultural globalization.
quote by Peter L. Berger
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Cultural Miss-understanding...
Cultural Miss-understanding.....and what-teez miss-understood...
and what must...be understood
in this nation...in particular, ....
one beautiful habit....people in America had, have followed and still....
is to ask for more....
ask anyone! ! now...and when ever...
male,
female,
boss,
coo-worker,
lover,
sheeta, ....ron lazrig...john taboona......to the president him or herself...
((it depends who is the president....in general...in USA...He/She is the one who must answer all the more questions....and decides what must be done...accordant to the traditions and the urgency...))
everyone will ask you for
even their pats...they ask for the same thing....
the list is recorded in the more.com data base....log file...
in contrast to this....
other culture...ask for less....
less of less and less of everything...
this culture where i grow up....has one job.....is to convert a person from a simple form to a simpler!
Now. with the influence of the 'MORE culture', you can hear....i want more simplicity.....for example....
Other culture....like the Chinese.....and in particular.....their head-quarter....((.I mean, where they load their Maw-it SEE-TONGUE dead matrix'....softwares...))
this culture asks for the spin and equilibrium.!
that is it! ! no more no less
you spin....i spin with you...let me see how far you can go....! !
poem by Atef Ayadi
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You have to face the fact that I have no reputation as a composer; I have my reputation as a songwriter and a performer-and that opportunity came this summer, when I was invited to perform at the Lincoln Centre festival in New York... three nights.
quote by Elvis Costello
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Often, these downplay the power of cultural imperialism - in that sense, playing the game of US interests - by reassuring us that the global success of American mass culture is not as bad as all that.
quote by Fredric Jameson
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In America, we no longer have an institutionalized, organized way of calling business to task - of taking them to account for what they've done - and this is especially true in the cultural realm.
quote by Thomas Frank
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My experiences have been, from the very beginning, cultural and creative. And my business has been a way of exposing the culture, exposing the artists so that the world could hear and see them.
quote by Russell Simmons
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